City Staff Attend Training To Enhance Goals of Community Coalition
Joan Walls, Deputy City Manager; Tracy Parsons, Community Relations Manager; and Anthony Cobb, Police Chief, traveled to Chicago on Wednesday March 21 to attend a workshop around the Violence Reduction Assessment Tool (VRAT). The VRAT is a planning and support instrument that allows communities to assess their capacity for effective implementation and to identify concrete action steps to increase their capacity to adopt evidence-based practices. The workshop was conducted by Dr. Ed McGarrell and his team from Michigan State University’s School of Criminal Justice . Since 2002, Dr. McGarrell’s team has served as the national research partner for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) program.This team has extensive experience working with local police agencies in implementing and sustaining focused deterrence efforts. In addition, they have provided training and technical assistance to PSN task forces coordinated by the 93 U.S. Attorney’s Offices across the country.